Though the necker cube reorientation resembles more a mirroring than a rotation.

This is why I think it may be 4d related, because 4d rotations happen through a plane and there is mirroring involved. Even though you think its a 3d rotation involved, if you AND your universe get reversed, everything stays the same relative to you, but you end up looking in relatively the opposite direction.

If we and the universe are 4d, what we think is only 3d around us - and ourselves - would not actually only have 3 dimensions. Our bodies would not be what we think that they are, and things that were mysterious in the universe, would probably be much better understood.

A quote from the above site: "I found this observation useful when playing with the applet below. What is it about? Travelling in 4D may have a milder effect on a 3D body than turning it inside out. It may only change its orientation."

Last edited by Hugh on Thu Aug 17, 2006 2:22 am, edited 2 times in total.

Hi moonlord, I'm trying out different ways to illustrate the VRI, and it's possible 4d connection. I hope to have something up in the weeks ahead...

In the meantime, here is another site to look at with regards to the VRI and Necker cube: http://neurolab.jsc.nasa.gov/e136spat.htmA quote from the above link: "almost everyone experiences VRIs occasionally. They are quite labile, and can be cognitively manipulated."

Just as our understanding of 3d space allows us to flip between the views of a 2d necker cube, access to four spatial dimensions might also allow us to flip between the different 3d views of the possible 4d space around us.

PWrong wrote:If you see the same thing, how do you know you're seeing it from a different axis?

I'm thinking it's because the light is coming from another perpendicular direction.

Aale originally talked about a tetronian viewpoint seeing "the lightrays reflecting off a body just in a direction more" and I wonder in which directions they could be seen from. If we're limited to seeing in 2d planes, we might be able to see those extra rays from along the perpendicular directions.

The reason we wouldn't see something different is because we don't change our position relative to the object we are viewing with the VRI. We don't walk around the object, we just see the light rays reflecting off from it from another direction.

If we're 4d, and in 4d space, I think we could see from all those different directions, and flip between them, with a necker cube type flip, which is what the VRI is.

Edit Apr. 7 /06

Wow, I was just on Wikipedia and I punched in "Visual Reorientation Illusions" and came up with this info that someone (not me ) has entered:

Wikipedia wrote:VRIs are 90 or 180 degree instant rotations of one's visual orientation. They often happen when coming out of dark rooms or passages. There is, however, a difference between VRIs and simple confusion. The VRI is a distinct perceptual event. You know that your bearings are in a certain direction, then they are instantly rotated exactly 90 or 180 degrees. One theory is that they are connected to a hypothetical spatial fourth dimension.

Hey, thanks to whoever added this.

Edit Apr. 17 /06

Someone added to the Wikipedia article: "A far more likely explanation is that they are caused by brain malfunctions."

As far as what we know for now, VRIs involve place cells in the hippocampus, and head direction cells in the limbic cortex and thalamus. The place cells record the environment's features, and the head direction cells fire whenever facing in a particular direction within that environment. These cells don't "malfunction" when they fire, they function. What is experienced by this function results in the ability to view the space around us from different possible perpendicular directions. That's why I think it may be 4d related.

Edit Apr. 23 /06

There are also grid cells that are located in the entorhinal cortex that fire when in specific locations within an environment. An interesting feature is that they "have multiple firing fields, with regular spacing, which tesselate the environment in a hexagonal pattern."

Here is an article I found at St. Paul Pioneer Press dated Apr. 04, 2002, which makes some interesting observations about our sense of direction. I've highlighted in bold some parts that I can identify with. Once you get used to VRIs, you can learn to recognize all four of the orientations you can see things in.

'I once was lost …'

People use all sorts of cues to keep from getting lost, the author of a new book says. And those with the best sense of direction have the toughest time when they lose their way.

BY RICHARD CHIN

St. Paul Pioneer Press

I sometimes get lost in the doctor's office.

If I notice the lake is on the wrong side of a park trail, I'll conclude that the water must have been relocated since I last visited, perhaps by some Army Corps of Engineers project.

If I'm hiking in a direction I know to be east, but the compass says is south, I see that as evidence that there must be iron ore deposits underground causing magnetic fluctuations.

Maybe that's why a new book, "Inner Navigation: Why We Get Lost and How We Find Our Way," caught my eye.

Written by Erik Jonsson, a retired Swedish engineer who now lives in San Diego, "Inner Navigation" is a contemplation on the human sense of direction and what happens when it goes haywire.

The book is told largely through cases studies and personal observations of getting lost and staying found with titles such as "Adari Way-Finding in the Sahara" and "Professor Peterson's Misery in Minneapolis."

Along the way, Jonsson explores such topics as why people wander in circles when they lose their bearings, why emerging from an underground subway stop can be so disorienting and how cars get lost in parking lots.

According to Jonsson, humans are endowed to varying degrees with three tools that help us in our way-finding. There's a "cognitive map," a sort of diagram we create in our heads when we explore a new area. What Jonsson calls a "direction frame" is our sense of direction, our inner compass. Finally, humans have a dead reckoning system, our sense of location or the way our brains keep track of where we are.

Jonsson writes that humans keep on course by using landmarks and directional cues like the sun, stars, wind direction, ripples on the sand or the snow, even distinctive bird songs.

But Jonsson also believes that humans have a magnetic sense of some kind that keeps them oriented. He thinks that sense of direction may be most powerfully developed among people who need it the most: early humans, people in primitive cultures, people experienced in finding their way in the desert or thickly wooded forests.

"My idea is we would've died out without it," Jonsson said in a telephone interview. "Not within a modern environment, but in the Paleolithic."

Jonsson, 79, said he is one of those who has a good sense of direction, developed as a young boy in Sweden.

"We lived at the edge of the forest in the village where I grew up. That was a good environment to hone the skills of going in the right direction," he said. "People who grow up in cities, they aren't allowed to explore outside the house alone until they're pretty old."

But there's a price to be paid by those with a strong sense of direction, according to Jonsson. They're the ones who experience the greatest distress when things get mixed up.

People with no feeling of direction apparently just shrug their shoulders and start looking for street signs or asking for directions when they take a wrong turn.

"Some people, north and south doesn't exist. It's just left and right and ahead or behind," Jonsson said. "As long as you stay on streets, you can manage pretty good without knowing where north is."

But when those with a good sense of direction get turned around, they can suffer a sense of directional vertigo verging on panic. You can't shake the feeling that the sun seems to be rising in what feels like the south. The water in the river seems to be flowing upstream. The plane from San Francisco to Chicago seems to be going west. You don't recognize your own house because it's turned in the wrong direction.

When that happens, "the direction frame that normally takes good care of us when we move around will work against us; in order to get to the right place, we have to move in what we feel is the wrong direction," Jonsson writes. "And the irony is that the stronger our sense of direction, the more severe the problems."

Fatigue, old age, even dreams can upset the directional sense, according to Jonsson. So can modern life. Traveling underground or stuffed in an aluminum fuselage, moving across time zones or hemispheres, can play havoc with a directional sense that seems best adapted to work in a natural environment in one's home area, according to Jonsson.

"Living in a metropolis with underground transportation, one is probably better off with a weak since of direction, since a strong one would easily go wrong under those circumstances, and be harder, or even impossible, to correct," according to Jonsson.

Gadgets like GPS devices can dull our directional ability. "If you have a car with a screen and a map that shows you where you are all the time, you can develop a reliance in that instrument instead of relying on your own brain," Jonsson said.

But when it comes to direction, our own brains have a tendency to oversimplify. In our cognitive maps, curved roads, coastlines and rivers are straightened out. Oblique intersections are turned into right angles. Jonsson calls this tendency the "gestalt law of good orientation."

Even the Mississippi River is not immune to being straightened out in our cognitive maps. That's why the southern part of St. Paul is called the West Side. It's on the far side of the Mississippi River — the west side — of the river that runs north to south in our mind.

After reading this i went to experiment giving myself VRI's and have now become so proficient at it that i can do it while looking at almost anything, and improvement comes everyday, and if you are correct in your ideas and theories could this mean i may be closer to seeing in the fourth dimension?

Unfortunetely, no 3D being can see "in 4D", because of the physical restrictions. You'd need a 3D retina, and light would need three independent directions to travel to it. To see in 4D you must be in 4D. It seems this is not the case.

You're closer to visualising in 4D. That is, having it all in your mind. However, I don't remember having any VRI's so I can't tell for sure.

"God does not play dice." -- Albert Einstein, early 1900's.
"Not only does God play dice, but... he sometimes throws them where we cannot see them." -- Stephen Hawking, late 1900's.

danielmoore wrote:After reading this i went to experiment giving myself VRI's and have now become so proficient at it that i can do it while looking at almost anything, and improvement comes everyday

Hi danielmoore, welcome to the forum. Wow, it's great that you can do VRIs easily now. Had you ever experienced them at all before reading this thread?

Is the 90 degree or 180 degree flip easier for you? Can you now do the VRI flip anywhere you want? Can you do four successive 90 degree flips in a row in a clockwise direction, back to the starting point, for example?

Do you still automatically flip back to your "normal" viewpoint after doing some VRIs? How does it feel for you to see your "normal" home surroundings flipped around?

danielmoore wrote:if you are correct in your ideas and theories could this mean i may be closer to seeing in the fourth dimension?

If there actually is a fourth spatial dimension, we're all already "seeing in the fourth dimension". The question is how we would actually see 4d space, if we were 4d ourselves, but with limited 2d "extending plane vision".

When you look at an object from one direction, then do the VRI flip, you can see that same object but from another direction. It's like both your eyes and the object you're looking at occupy another dimension of space. Do you sense this with the VRI yourself?

moonlord wrote:Unfortunetely, no 3D being can see "in 4D", because of the physical restrictions. You'd need a 3D retina, and light would need three independent directions to travel to it.

How do you know that our retina isn't actually 3D, and that the "independent directions" of light that "travel to it" aren't actually visualized with the VRI?

moonlord wrote:To see in 4D you must be in 4D.

Does a 4D being see in 4D? Doesn't a 4D being see its surroundings as 3D? Wouldn't those 3D axes be perpendicular to each other? Couldn't the fourth viewing axis be placed anywhere within that 3D viewing space and because of this, have a 3D necker cube type ability to flip between the possible views?

moonlord wrote:You're closer to visualising in 4D. That is, having it all in your mind. However, I don't remember having any VRI's so I can't tell for sure.

For those people that have experienced the VRI, it is easy to see how it could be related to higher spatial dimensions.

We can't see the individual smallest particles of matter. We only see a compilation of the surface of a lot of those particles together. If that matter is actually 4D, we'd only see the surface boundary of it. We'd only see a sphere boundary of a tetrasphere at a single glance, but if we were 4D as well, we'd have extra viewing directions of that tetrasphere available to us, and we'd see the light from those extra directions, with what I think would be a VRI flip.

before iread this thread i had experienced VRI but i didnt know what they were. And no, i cant just do them newhere anytime. When im in a buildng it seems a lot easier. the movie theatre is easiest for me, it takes about 5 minutes for me to convince myself that the tehatre is facing a different dirrection, and the 180 degrees flip seems easier for some reason, maybe its easier for my mind to visualize or something. I also experience VRI's almost every morning because i sleep walk (lol, i have to lock my door every night so i dont go wandering outside) so when i wake up i guess my ind remembers where i went to sleep, and a lot of times ill be in my bed but facing the opposite direction, so the flip happens as soon as i open my eyes. And ive been practicing and the most flips ive been able to do in one minute is 2. I was really tired , i hadnt slept freo 2 days, and i was pretty much at the pint where the sleep deprevation was impairing my mind in all sorts of ways, but this made the VRI's a lot easier to acheive, i was sitting on my sofa, and i closed my eyes and convinced my self that the sofa was flipped 180 dgrs and on the opposite wall it was against, then when i ahd completely convinced myself i got the VRI sensation and opened my eyes and the room flips 90 degrees and then about 5 seconds later it flipped the other 90. This is the only time anything like this has occured in my VRI experiments. Ive told my friends about VRI's but only one of them has ever had one, and they dont seem to have the ability to make the flip happen. My best friend acheived the 180 degree flip one time, when we were seeing world trade center about a week ago, and ever since hes been intrested in them too , but he hasnt had another since. Im at the point currently where i can acheive almost 10 VRI's a day. But i have to go, and try and get some sleep, if anything else new happens w/ my VRI's ill post it on this thread.

Thanks for sharing your VRI experiences. It's easier for me to do a VRI inside a building too, and a movie theater is easiest for me too. Isn't it fun?

Have you ever held on to the new position, then left the theater and seen everything else flipped around too, then had it all flip back to the "normal" view? It's fun to try the VRI in new places and see them in a totally new direction. Isn't it like a "whole new space to explore"?

Have you tried the mirror trick yet?

10 VRIs a day is great! Keep practicing, and post anything VRI related. I'm very interested in them.

moonlord wrote:Unfortunetely, no 3D being can see "in 4D", because of the physical restrictions. You'd need a 3D retina, and light would need three independent directions to travel to it.

How do you know that our retina isn't actually 3D, and that the "independent directions" of light that "travel to it" aren't actually visualized with the VRI?

Because the effects don't match

Hugh wrote:

moonlord wrote:To see in 4D you must be in 4D.

Does a 4D being see in 4D? Doesn't a 4D being see its surroundings as 3D? Wouldn't those 3D axes be perpendicular to each other? Couldn't the fourth viewing axis be placed anywhere within that 3D viewing space and because of this, have a 3D necker cube type ability to flip between the possible views?

I didn't make myself clear enough. I meant you see in 3D parts of a 4D landscape.

"God does not play dice." -- Albert Einstein, early 1900's.
"Not only does God play dice, but... he sometimes throws them where we cannot see them." -- Stephen Hawking, late 1900's.

Do you think there is any way possible that the effects could conceivably match?

moonlord wrote:I didn't make myself clear enough. I meant you see in 3D parts of a 4D landscape.

Moonlord, this is an interesting topic for me. Could you please explain what you think a being with two eyes that give "2d extending plane" vision (as we have) would see differently in a 4D environment, than in a 3D one? And what if that being is 4D as well, with that limited vision, what would it see differently than we do? How would its 3D surroundings look different?

im trying now to get the VRI's to stick like u said uve done, ive had one stick for matbe 5-10 second but never any longer. seeing VRI's is one of the most amazing experiences ive had, everything that you are familiar w/ just swaps, the places are still the same but its like viewing it from an intirely different perspective even though you and all the stuff is in the same place that it normally would be. I didnt know VRI's could stick for very long but i guess if i keep practicing maybe i can learn to master the technique. Lately i havent done many VRI's and im getting worse at doing them at what seems an exponential rate so i gotta get backinto the habit of trying to do at least one a day, the reason im slacking is because school just recently started and i dont really have the time or place, but this weekend im definitely seeing at least one movie so im going to try and make it stick. How do you make it stick? Just not think about the fact that its swapped? I always immediately picture in my mind how things are supposed to be and it instantly swaps back, ive tried to not think about it but i always do no matter how hard i try, but this weekend im gonna try to stick it at the theatre, and im gonna try and get my girlfriends to do a VRI, ive tried before but she just thinks its crazy, she says i need a life :/ . But neway my next question, this question is for hugh or neone else who has VRI's. Whats the easiest flip for you all to do? Because for me its 180 so when i explain to my friends what to do i always tell them to relax and clear their mind, and just picture the room flipped 180, but i was wandering if its easier for some people to do 90? btw 3 of my friedns now have had at least one VRI since i explained to them waht to do, the others i think are just to impatient. but neway im taking up a lot of space w/ this post but i just have one more question. Is seeing all four points of view at once have something to do w/ 4d? I doubt its possible but ive been trying to see the normal viewpoint and the 180 flip view at the same time. Have you ever heard of nething like this? Last question, i just thought of it, Are people born with a different of the four viewpoints or are we all born w/ the same, i guess there really wouldnt be a way to tell but i thought it might be intresting to find a way to differenciate between them, ok im gone ill repost as soon as something really wierd happens w/ my VRI's or if i ahve ne questions, and thanks sooooooo much for enlightening me to this idea guys its made life a lot more fun when i thought it couldnt get much funner( i know thast not a word but more fun just didnt sound right)and thanks for all the explanations.

danielmoore wrote:seeing VRI's is one of the most amazing experiences ive had, everything that you are familiar w/ just swaps, the places are still the same but its like viewing it from an intirely different perspective even though you and all the stuff is in the same place that it normally would be.

Agreed! Isn't it great to experience them and control them?

Hi danielmoore, your posts are great to read! Okay, I'll try to answer as many questions as I can.

I've found that I have a "normal" orientational view of each place that I've been to. It's the "default" view that my orientation always automatically flips back to if I'm not focusing on trying to change it. Why it's hard to make a VRI "stick" is because your brain is used to seeing it a certain way, and feels most comfortable with it that way. It's for our own safety in a sense, because we tend to lose our bearings when we do a VRI away from our "normal" view. North, south, east and west all do a 90 or 180 degree flip relative to where they once were.

I've found the best way to make VRIs stick is to continue to exist in that viewpoint, until it becomes more "normal" for that space. The more you see a space a certain way, the easier it is to do. What helps to make it stick after the flip back to normal is to immediately flip back to the new way you just saw, then try to look at one spot on a wall straight ahead, and feel comfortable in the new view. The more you get used to it, the easier it becomes to visit when you want to.

I've always found the 180 flip easier than the 90, and it's the same with everyone who I've ever spoke to about this too.

You've GOT to try the 180 degree flip mirror trick. I talk about how to set up the two mirrors for it on page 1 of this thread in my October 2/05 post. It is so cool to flip between the 180 degree views back and forth. You get to see the 180 room view at the same time as your normal view, then "go into" that room on the "other side" of the mirror! It's also a chance to show anyone who doesn't understand the VRI to see where it is you're going to! Remember, it's the double mirror reflection you're "going into" at the intersection of the two mirrors held at 90 degrees. Have fun and please report back about it.

As far as seeing all four views at once, I've often thought about this too. Here on Earth, we can only see 4 different views because of gravity but up in space, astronauts have no restrictions on VRIs. I think there are 24 different possible orientations to experience up there. I think we have a limited view, that can only see a "3d slice" of what's around us at any one time. If there are actually higher dimensions of space around us, and we can only see in 3d at a time, we'd actually have more 3d views to access than just the one we only think we have. That's why I think the VRI might be a clue to consider.

danielmoore wrote:Last question, i just thought of it, Are people born with a different of the four viewpoints or are we all born w/ the same, i guess there really wouldnt be a way to tell but i thought it might be intresting to find a way to differenciate between them

Each of us can access four different views here on Earth, which one is the "normal" view for each of us really isn't known except by the person themself but here is something you can do to find some differences.

It's a great game to play with your friends and family too and helps to point out how common that VRIs are. Mention a home of a person that each of you know, and ask everyone at the same time to point in the direction that they enter the front door to that place. You'll get some interesting results. Go through several other places that you all know, and do the same thing. Fun isn't it? Tell people to forget about "who is right" and which way that north, south, east and west "really are", it's actually all relative to each person's bearing sense.

The thing I've always wondered about is that if one actually can see things from different directions, could it be related to higher dimensions, because it certainly does feel that way.

Good luck at the theater this weekend with the VRIs.

Last edited by Hugh on Fri Oct 20, 2006 12:25 am, edited 2 times in total.

i wasnt able to do the VRI at the theatre, my gf was getting pissed at me for zoning out, but i was able to do it in the mirror which was pretty awesome, but recently ive been reading nasa's reports on VRI's and and all the other spacial illusions and i dont really see where this is tied in with 4d. Yea the VRI's do seem like something that is so amazing it can only be explained by somethign like 4d but so are a lot of other things, most of which have simple 3d explanations. But if I do experience anything that hasnt yet been written newhere w/ my VRI's ill let you know.

danielmoore wrote:i was able to do it in the mirror which was pretty awesome

Isn't it great to be able to see yourself and the room flipped 180, then go into it? When I look at the reflection of myself at the intersection of the two mirrors, then move into that reflection, it is an awesome experience. It makes me think that what makes up my physical body, has a presence in more than the normal three dimensions we see, because it also exists "over there" too.

danielmoore wrote:but recently ive been reading nasa's reports on VRI's and and all the other spacial illusions and i dont really see where this is tied in with 4d. Yea the VRI's do seem like something that is so amazing it can only be explained by somethign like 4d but so are a lot of other things, most of which have simple 3d explanations.

Yes, I agree that this may not be related at all to higher dimensions, but what if it is? What if this simple, common experience that people have, is actually a clue to the existence of higher dimensions? Doesn't it actually feel like it might be to you?

What if there actually are higher dimensions? What would our experience of them be? What would we notice differently in our surroundings and in ourselves than if there were only 3 dimensions? I think it might tie into some ability to look in more directions than 3 dimensions would allow.

danielmoore wrote:But if I do experience anything that hasnt yet been written newhere w/ my VRI's ill let you know.

Great! Thanks for sharing your experiences of them. Even if they turn out to be not related to higher dimensions, they're still a lot of fun to do.

About flipping at the movie theater; it's easy enough to do without having to zone out for too long. For me it's the easiest place to do the flip. As you visit different theaters in each of the four directions, just get a directional feel of each one. Then when you think of being in another one that faces another direction, the flip just happens without too much work. I can flip around to all four directions within about 10 seconds when I'm in one. What helps are the low lighting conditions, the huge flat distant wall to focus your bearings on, and the general similarities between theaters.

I can imagine someone who has never really consciously experienced a VRI before, trying it in a movie theater and saying "Whoa!"

I've been thinking about how I could explain this differently, plz forgive me for the double post.

A 2d plane can be seen in its entirety from one direction, and also in its same entirety from a direction 180 degrees opposite in 3d space. The same 2d plane can be seen from 2 different directions in 3d space.

Even in 4d space, 3d would still consist of 3 perpendicular axes. A 3d viewpoint would have 3 perpendicular axes. 4d beings would have a 3d viewpoint.

In 4d, couldn't a 3d cube viewpoint be seen in its entirety from one direction, and also in its same entirety from a direction 180 degrees opposite?

Our bearing sense includes a 3d viewpoint. We are aware of forward/backward, right/left and up/down. If we were in 4d, and were 4d ourselves, wouldn't we be able to see our same 3d viewpoint from different directions?

It's interesting to think about what we'd see while looking at 4d matter, and realizing that we would be looking at the 3d surface of the whole thing, as we are in this animation. Each of the individual tiniest particles of matter are free to rotate whichever way they want to, in their own hyperspheric shell, and one can get a sense of this here. When they talk of how the higher dimensions are "curled up" and too small to see, one gets a sense of it while looking at this animation, if one can shrink this down to the tiniest level.

If we are 4d too, then our tiniest particles would have the same quality, and we would have those tiny extensions in the higher dimension. We would have more "sides" to us, and our eyes would too. So even though we would see 3d around us, I think we would be able to do an actual 3d necker cube type flip within that 4d space with the VRI.

Here is a picture I came across of a Calabi-Yau grid. This is what I'm thinking of when I say that the smallest particles of matter may have tiny higher dimensions, and here is what the surface of something may look like on a very tiny scale.

Now if the matter that makes up our eyes and bodies has the same makeup, the surface to surface light transfer might be available along many different higher dimensional pathways, and this is where the VRI would fit in. The surface would look the same on a large scale, but it could be seen from another direction from another small section of the Calabi-Yau grid surface.

edit: Nov. 8 / 06

Here is an interesting picture I came across recently of how an unfolded tesseract (in 3d) would fold up in 4d space; the arrows show which faces would come together. We see a 3d surrounding boundary of the space around us, but if that space is actually 4d, or higher, then there are extra directions available to see it.

I had what could be considered a VRI this morning. I was walking in my house, it was 5 in the morning, and I was walking to the bathroom, which is just outside the door to my room. This crappy diagram shows my room and the bathroom:

|
|
: <bathroom door
|
|_.._____
^ my bedroom door.

When I walked outisde my door, I felt very strange, and all of a sudden my bathroom door was staring right in front of me. I did not move, but it felt like everything else rotated 90 degrees, just as Hugh described.

This experience allows me to argue more effectively that VRI's are not real, and are actually psychosematic (spelling?), but observing the conditions that created this phenomenom.

Facts: It was dark. It was 5 AM, and I was very tired. I was not half-asleep, I was fully conscious. I had a cold yesterday, and I was just coming out of it today.

Possible Conclusions:
- VRI's are real
- The environment and conditions surrounding the "VRI" incident effect my brain and my ability to think properly, and what appears to be a 90 degree rotation was simply me blacking out for an instant, staggering, and then coming back awake, not realizing I ever blacked out to begin with.

Being a skeptic, I opt for the second option. Can anyone else shed some light, or come up with other possible conclusions for this incident?

I am the Nick formerly known as irockyou.postcount++;"All evidence of truth comes only from the senses" - Friedrich Nietzsche

irockyou wrote:I had what could be considered a VRI this morning.... When I walked outisde my door, I felt very strange, and all of a sudden my bathroom door was staring right in front of me. I did not move, but it felt like everything else rotated 90 degrees, just as Hugh described.

It sounds like a VRI to me. Your normal view of the bathroom door was changed to a view that you had not consciously seen before, and this view was 90 degrees flipped away from "normal".

I'm curious, how long did that new view position hold? Was it only a second or two or were you able to hold it there longer? Did you notice that everything else had flipped around too, as in the rest of your house?

I can identify with your feelings of the strangeness of it all. Isn't it like a whole new space you are looking at in one sense, yet so familiar in another? Everything stays exactly the same relative to each other within the space itself, but the "entire universe" flips around from where it once was.

irockyou wrote:This experience allows me to argue more effectively that VRI's are not real, and are actually psychosematic (spelling?), but observing the conditions that created this phenomenom.

Facts: It was dark. It was 5 AM, and I was very tired. I was not half-asleep, I was fully conscious. I had a cold yesterday, and I was just coming out of it today.

Possible Conclusions:- VRI's are real

Well, VRIs are real, I know that from personal experience and from the experience from others that I have talked to. If you need something stronger, check out this document from Nasa: Click here on page 3 and 4 where VRIs are talked about. Here is a quote from page 4 "Actually, it is possible to have a VRI right here on Earth, as when you leave an underground subway station labyrinth, and upon seeing a familiar visual landmark, realize that e.g. you are facing east, not west. On Earth, gravity constrains our body orientation, and provides an omnipresent "down" cue, so we normally only experience VRIs about a vertical axis."

irockyou wrote:- The environment and conditions surrounding the "VRI" incident effect my brain and my ability to think properly, and what appears to be a 90 degree rotation was simply me blacking out for an instant, staggering, and then coming back awake, not realizing I ever blacked out to begin with.

Being a skeptic, I opt for the second option. Can anyone else shed some light, or come up with other possible conclusions for this incident?

You suggest that your brain didn't "think properly" and this is what caused it to not perceive the "actual" 90 degree turn coming out from the bedroom. It's interesting though if you stop and think about this being less of a disability and more of an ability.

Isn't it interesting to think that over a period of a few seconds, you saw your bathroom door from two different directions? At first from the "new" direction, and then from the "normal" direction, when it flipped back to normal?

Light was perceived to be travelling from two different directions, according to your brain, from the same object.

The idea in this thread is that if one can see light coming from the same object from different directions, could it be that it is because those different directions are actually available?

Please let me know of any further experiences, now that you know what the VRI is. Try the flip in a movie theater, it's really, really cool.